Bilateral barter is simple exchange (one-on-one) of a product or service for another product or service. Multilateral barter is a more complex exchange, where members do not exchange directly and, instead, use the services of a "barter exchange".

Ormita is a multilateral barter exchange network.

1. You do not need to buy from the same person you sell to
2. You do not need to sell to the same person you buy from
3. Ormita keeps track of debits and credits

A business is limited to the amount of people who see its advertising, hear about it and walk past its door. If a business has excess capacity (e.g. unsold appointments, empty rooms, slow moving stock) then they aren't operating at 100% efficiency.

Bartering offers a way to turn this excess capacity into a needed commodity unfortunately, historic barter has many limitations:

Need – ensuring that both parties want each others products or services

Fair trade - ensuring that the items being swapped have the same value

Timing – if you wish to trade corn for fish you can only do this if corn is in season.

Issuing IOU’s – If a party’s trade takes place now, but one parties product or service is not worth the same amount then one party will have to issue another party an “IOU”

The barter exchange offers a method where the participants do not have to exchange goods or services directly with one another but can instead exchange using a barter “currency”.

In a barter exchange network the number of each 'type' of product or service being offered in the exchange is limited; therefore there is always a 'demand' for every product and service being offered. In the cash economy a business only has the demand that they create by advertising and repeat custom, however in a barter economy a business is always in demand because there is only one (or a few) of them.

The currency used by the barter exchange network is, in effect, an “IOU” issued by participants themselves.Where one member purchases a product from another, they issue this IOU to the seller.

The seller can then redeem this IOU with this business – or any other participant of the barter exchange. When a business joins the system they list the products or services they wish to sell and they are provided an overdraft in “barter dollars” which they may spend with other participants of the exchange.

One “barter dollar” is the equivalent to one unit of the national currency. When a business sells a product or accepts repayment of an outstanding debt they receive a “barter dollar”. This can then be used to buy goods or services from other participants of the network.

When one member is in debt, they are obliged to sell their goods or services to any member who may be in credit.The sum of all accounts for members of the network is always zero, even though some will be in credit and some in debt.

This ensures that anyone who has received “barter dollars” is able to spend them on a range of goods or services, making them as valuable as cash.

Because of the selective nature of the barter exchange every purchase made is matched against a new sale of the businesses own products or services – thereby ensuring growth.